


Ashes to Ashes

by a_mere_trifle



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Darkfic, Gen, Post-Series, Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-11
Updated: 2010-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-12 14:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_mere_trifle/pseuds/a_mere_trifle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're the Knight of Time, you know a loop when you're stuck in it. It comes down to the same thing, every April, and the universe is just gonna sit there and take it-- nothing's ever gonna change... Not unless you change it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes to Ashes

Jade thinks it's wonderful. John's barely even figured it out. And Rose says she's accepted it as a fact of life.

You're not sure what you think. You're not sure you've really thought about anything in a long time. You've had some pretty good reasons for that.

But now it's all supposed to be over, and it's the same goddamn shit, the universe pulling the same self-congratulatory, masturbatory bullshit every goddamn year. April 13th, regional science fair; your shitty exhibit shouldn't have been included, you literally slapped the whole thing together in one night, but there you were, with John's ectobiology and Rose's white mice and Jade's-- Christ knew what the hell Jade had pulled out of her archive of impossible shit, there were too many curlicues on her sign to read and you just did not give a fuck anyway. All four of you and a dimensional rift, a suspiciously familiar eldritch monster from beyond the gates of hell.

April 13th, spring break came early due to some twisted little jackass playing fast and loose with his chemistry lessons: you followed Bro to some convention in Florida, which was across the street from the Betty Crocker factory Rose's mom was supervising, two blocks away from the harlequin convention John's dad was visiting, which was kitty-fucking-corner from the park Jade was playing in with demiBec that week. You caught John's eye across the street and weren't surprised at all when people started dropping. Zombie virus, you still don't know what the fuck, but _it keeps happening_.

Every. Fucking. Year. You are the Knight of Time, you know a loop when you're trapped in it. You bought a dozen decks of cards, one time, shuffling them all, dealing yourself hand after hand after hand. The order would be different, but in the end, you'd find yourself staring down at five clubs-- a royal fucking flush. You've thought about trying this shit in Vegas but you figure that's where it'd arbitrarily break down.

You know now why your brother-- why your father-- has developed his weird-ass thing for puppets. It's empathy. He knows what it's like. And if he pulls the strings of a lot of puppets, maybe, just in that little corner of his life, that means he isn't one.

And now you know why you collect dead things in jars, things that should've turned to dust long ago, caged and frozen and unchanging. Products of some misguided bullshit science, halfway abominations, that shouldn't have ever been allowed to happen. But it did, and they're here, and they're trapped.

Christ, you hate summer, you hate spring. It's April again, and summer's smothering you already, heat so thick in the air you can almost see it, clinging in a film like syrup on your skin. It all comes back to fire, again and again, and someday, it's got to burn itself out.

You don't know what will be left when that happens. Fire has a way of leaving things unrecognisable.

It's easier in winter, when the heat starts dying down. It's easier to ignore it when that part of you starts dying. You can pretend it's all normal. You can pretend nothing's wrong. Drop ill rhymes and sick beats and pretend it doesn't all come from the same disease.

Your phone chimes; it's your sister.

TT: April is the cruelest month, indeed.  
TT: I know you see it too. You're not as good at concealing it as you think.  
TT: I shouldn't approve, but... sometimes denial mechanisms exist for a reason.  
TT: Perhaps repression really can be one's friend.

Shit, that's the last thing you want to talk about. You throw your phone back down. Rose sometimes gets in the mood for monologues, but it never lasts very long. Sooner or later, the pathetic futility of it gets to her. Dramatic as she is, melodramatic is the last thing she wants to be.

Fucking irony.

TT: We're archetypes, I suppose.  
TT: Though I hate being forced to give Jung the credit.  
TT: We ought to be able to break free from the mold, and yet...  
TT: Have you ever been dealt a hand of cards?  
TT: After Skaia, I mean?

You roll your eyes. Of course she had the same goddamn idea. There's nothing new under the sun and you're all the fucking same, drawing on all the same pools of ideas and genes and every fucking thing. None of you are real at all. Clones and copies and ghosts and fucking--

TT: Then you know.  
TT: It still has us.  
TT: We shouldn't really exist in the first place.  
TT: Can you imagine, your "brother" and my "mother"?  
TT: They were never consulted.  
TT: It shouldn't even be possible, really.  
TT: If even they are clones, where did they come from?  
TT: Where is the original source?

You close your eyes, grit your teeth, and finally give in. "time doesnt work that way," you type. "fuck if i know why but it doesnt. it only has to happen once."

TT: Wait.  
TT: Why are you typing everything twice?

You blink, read over it again. This is wrong.

TT: What are you talking about?  
TT: That's hardly any better.

She hasn't been monologuing, this isn't a solioquy. In fact, you'd bet good money you called her first.

TT: It does, I suppose.  
TT: But you could hardly expect me to go along with it.  
TT: Freud was wrong about the prevalence of instincts, but they still exist.  
TT: It takes a great deal to overcome th

What the fuck is she talking about? What the FUCK is she talking about?

You push yourself to focus; you see for the first time that there are other windows flashing on your phone. You bring one up and check the timestamp; it was while you were asleep. As much as you're even capable of that anymore.

GG: yeah of course you can!!  
GG: itll be great!!  
GG: but i thought you had school?  
GG: i thought you didnt like playing with time anymore!  
GG: well good!  
GG: im glad youre okay with it now  
GG: its who you are and you need to accept it!  
GG: i dont know why its been so hard for you  
GG: its nice that were all related!  
GG: we can never lose each other, you see!!  
GG: no matter what, well all end up together.  
GG: oh yeah the code is 4134  
GG: see you soon!!

Oh, fuck. Fuck no. Fuck no. This can't be what you think it is. It just can't. You're not that far gone, you'd fucking know. You'd never lose control that way--

"It only has to happen once," he says.

Your teeth clench; you do not turn around. "This is bullshit," you say. "You wouldn't. You're faking this. This is like some 'it's a wonderful life' or suicide by cop bullshit right here."

"Do I look like fucking Clarence?" he says. "Ring all the bells you want, we lost our wings a long time ago. Now, the suicide by cop thing, there you're not far off."

You're pulling up news sites, trying to remember the name of the town where John lives. Rose is too recent and Jade too remote, if this is going to be reported anywhere--

"I could've faked that too, of course," he says. "It proves nothing."

"Shut the fuck up." He could've; it could all be an elaborate plan, but--

"Tell me," he says. "If it's so impossible, if you would never, ever do it-- why was it the first thing you thought of?"

"Because it's April," you say. "Just because it's April, and you know that fucking month--"

"There's gonna be a lot of Aprils," he says. "How many can you take?"

"All of them." There's a local news report, but they aren't naming names. Did you ever uninstall Sburb? Of course you did, the second you were sure it was safe. Did she?

"Of course," he says. "You can take everything. You can take anything and not even blink. We're cool. Do you remember? It's the first thing I remember, Bro looking down at me and saying, 'You're a pretty cool kid'. Rose said it didn't surprise her. I didn't ask why."

"Liar--"

"Okay, fine, I just don't remember. Jegus fuck. What crawled up your ass and--"

Your sword's in your hand before you even realize it, as you spin away from your computer to face him. He's got a new suit just for the occasion, pure and brilliant white; what an _asshole_. He's not even smiling, not even frowning, he's just standing there with a sword of his own and--

"I don't care what you've done or haven't done, I'm not doing a damn thing for you, you insufferable prick," you say.

"Yeah, wasn't really planning on giving you a choice." He shifts into combat mode, a subtle change in stance but you know the signs.

"Oh, please," you say. "If you kill me--"

"Shit man, you're so far off your game you're throwing Monopoly tokens up in here. We've seen enough of our own dead bodies to figure out that isn't how it works."

Your eyes narrow. It's irrefutable. You don't know what the fuck is up with causality in this place but you've seen the results of any number of stupid things you know you never went back and did. Killing you won't erase him. Maybe it's not his goal, but he can do it. Nobody's immune. Or-- _you're_ not.

"We should've died with Skaia," he says. "But time doesn't work that way. When it comes to paradoxes, the universe is just gonna sit there and take it. So someone's got to get something done. It's up to us."

"You."

"Us."

You think of Jade, puppy gamboling at her feet, welcoming you in with a bright smile, turning away, just for a second, because she couldn't even comprehend having anything to fear from you, her friend, practically her brother--

\--Fuck, you're fighting him already: you don't even remember making the first move. He's a quick fucker, no surprise, leaping back and spinning away, and it's possible he remembers this whole fight, remembers being you. Makes it a battle of information, and you'd be fucked if he weren't playing to lose.

Might be fucked anyway. It's not like anything has to make sense, not where the eight of you are concerned.

That is why you're monsters.

Fucking NO. You will not give into that bullshit, not now, not ever--

"But we are," he says. "The fuck more proof do you need? You wanna hear what Jade told me? You wanna hear John's last words?"

"Fuck you," you spit.

"He loved you, you know. They all did." He ducks under your sword, scores your shoulder before you throw a puppet in his face.

"Yeah, yeah, they were all heartbroken and shocked when I turned on them like a monster, you think I don't know how this shit--"

"Heartbroken? Sure. Shocked? No."

You blink, wondering where the hell he's going with this.

"They saw it coming," he says. "We're actually pretty shit at hiding things. They knew exactly how fucked up we were getting."

You know you shouldn't listen to him, but-- you wonder. Flecks of conversation spiral through your head, phrases and questions and odd hesitations--

"They just wondered what the fuck took you so long," he says, with a sickly smirk.

"Bitch, _please_ , even if--"

"They just wondered why you hadn't saved them yet," he says, and then you're under his guard, clutching him to you in a tight embrace, your sword through his stomach.

You don't even remember how you did it. You don't even remember.

"Not like it's the first time," he murmurs, resting his lips against yours. "It'll be easy. It'll be quick. No need for last words or pain or any of that bullshit. Just-- finished. Finally."

"...What the fuck is wrong with you?" you whisper, against the voice inside that says, _you know._

"Maybe I didn't have a choice," he says. "Maybe I thought I'd never do it, too. Never give in. Not ever."

"Then what the fuck happened?!"

"Maybe... this."

"You're making no sense. You're making no goddamn sense!" you yell, but his eyes have slipped shut and his breathing's gone ragged, and you can answer by yourself now, really, because what in the living fuck has EVER made sense in your life? For thirteen years you fooled yourself but it was all fucking nuts in the end.

"Fuck," you mutter, " _fuck_ ," and jerk out your sword. He slumps down, haphazardly, and you don't know-- they say gut wounds are the worst, you ought to-- you ought to help him out here, you ought to have a little mercy--

\-- _never been easy on yourself in your life_ , said Rose, and you think, _No. Never. Why start now?_

Except maybe that was the problem all along--

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ," you hiss, and rip the jagged edge of your blade along his throat. Not exactly kind, but less cruel than leaving him here to bleed to death slowly from a gut wound in your own fucking room. About as good a compromise as you can fucking hope for today.

This can't happen. This can't fucking happen and it's not going to.

You pull out your sylladex

 _i thought you didnt like playing with time anymore!_

\--and bring out the timetables, gritting your teeth: you're used to doing whatever shit you have to, by now. Necessity, the motherfucker of invention.

You give yourself half a day and catch some unreal air. You've never been to Rose's place, not even by car or anything, but goddammit, you'll pull up Google Maps on your phone, and if it's all undone now and she gives you shit for dropping by, well, you can deal with that. You'll fucking lay down on her couch and tell her all about your mother-- except she's the only one who knows your mother. You'd have to talk about your father, your brother--

Jesus, thank fuck Freud is dead. You've got half a mind to go back and kill the old motherfucker yourself--

\--and that kind of shit is way less funny now you know you goddamn _could_.

No. No. It's not going to happen.

There's her house, still white and blocky even reverted back to the way it was before-- reminds you of one of those buildings by that one famous architect guy; you're pretty sure he couldn't have built it, but some dumbass was probably aping him. You wonder what he'd have thought of what you made of this house, once. Crazy bastard probably would've loved Sburb. Before it killed him, twice.

It started storming on the way, thunder and lightning, just like the first time you saw this place, and Christ, you're not surprised. Like a goddamn hurricane, but they don't really get those here, do they? Too far inland; this is just another storm, no matter how black the sky is again, just as black as-- god _damn_ it, everything repeats.

They won't open the door, but you know how to get in.

 _And why were you thinking of that?_

It wasn't something you were thinking about, just something you happened to see-- shit, living in your brother's place with him and his crazy friends, home security was something you learned the goddamn hard way. Their windows are too big, there's probably some security system but you don't care about that today.

Besides. The back window's broken out already.

 _Fuck._.

There's blood on some of the window shards; you knock a few more of them out before climbing through. The place is silent (not like a tomb) and the lights aren't on; the stairs are at the end of the hall, just two steps away, and god _damn_ it, of course there would be stairs. You've been warned. Warned and warned and--

 _Break._ Fucking loops. They all end, though. Unless you're working with one of those stupid bullshit languages like ~.ATH, and what stupid fuck would come up with something like that anyway, and what dumber fuck would give it that _name_ \--

You shove open the door to the stairs; he's standing at the end of the hall, white-suited, sword dripping with blood.

Lightning flashes. There's someone lying on the floor. It's not Rose.

Thunder shakes the house to its foundations, even as another flash lights up the hallway.

The person on the floor is you.

"'Sup," says the Dave at the end of the hall, leaning down to wipe the blood from his sword on his-- your-- the other his'-- shirt. He's not dead yet, the one on the floor; "Don't," he's croaking, and it's not to the Dave in the suit. " _Don't_ ," he says, and he's saying it to you.

"He doesn't have a choice," says the other Dave. "He already tried fighting me. Look how it ended up."

"That doesn't even fucking make sense," you say, desperately, ignoring the fact that it doesn't goddamn have to. "It doesn't make sense, we're not in that fucking game anymore--"

"We are the fucking game," says the other Dave, rising. "You've figured it out. You already know all this. We _are_ the fucking game. It made us. We're all that's left of it."

And the four of you swore to take that game down.

Your sword is trembling in your hand. " _Don't_ ," the Dave on the floor rattles, voice desperate, before the other Dave presses a clean white shoe against his throat.

"It doesn't make sense," you say, even though you know you shouldn't come back to this-- "If I come here and fight you and die, then how the fuck am I here?!"

"Jesus fuck, how many times do you have to see it before it gets through your thick-ass skull?" He shakes his head, as the other Dave twitches feebly on the floor-- you want to run forward, you want to save him, but his sword's pointed toward you and it's already stained with your blood.

"It doesn't have to make sense," he says. "It only has to happen once. You can strike me down now, if you want. Drag out two bodies, we've done it before. But sooner or later. Sooner or later, it'll get to you. The seed's there. It's gonna sprout. And I'll come back here, and I'm gonna win. Because I've done it already."

"Fuck you," you whisper, shaking, mind racing. It can't be right, it can't be right, it makes no sense; but there he is, and the Dave on the floor's not moving anymore, and this shit shouldn't be able to happen--

"But it is," he says. "It is, and you can't stop it. And you're not even gonna try."

He turns, and opens the door, closing it behind him. There's a flash of pink light that bursts through the cracks around the door; something heavy falls to her floor with a clatter, a thump loud enough you can feel it through your shoes.

It's happening, and you can't stop it. And you're not.

And you _can't_.

 _This is how it works._

It's four minutes and thirteen seconds before he walks back out, lip bloody, suit rumpled and stained with ink. He's done it, and you didn't stop him.

No. No more bullshit. You've done it, and you couldn't stop yourself. Fuck, you barely even tried.

You couldn't change anything. All this fucking time travel, and you could never change a motherfucking thing.

He tosses you a card; you catch it. It holds the code for a suit, brilliant white.

"See you in a couple hours," he says; and he's gone.

And you know what you have to do.


End file.
